Wednesday, December 09, 2015

In preparation for monetization

So my blog turned one year old today! Well, not today, but somewhere around this time anyway,1 and I'm pretty stoked about this, because according to the internet blogging gurus, it is around this point that my readers should all of a sudden start begging me to let them give me money.
Now I'm not supposed to give you guys what you want right away. I'm supposed to let the begging swell to a critical mass where people are almost but not quite in physical pain due to their suffering from lack of ways to give me money (sussing out where this point is without allowing people to experience actual physical pain is exactly the kind of weighty responsibility expected from a serious blogger), and only then am I to open the floodgates that will lead me to become an instant internet billionaire. I can't wait!

As you can tell, this is all very exciting, and while I wait for the cries of desperation to start flooding my inbox, I have already thought of a couple of ways to make the process of you giving me money more fun for everyone.

Trillie sucks at stuff™ original banner macaroni T-shirt!

Only instead of having it printed, I'd glue on actual macaroni! Mind=blown, right?! Every piece would be unique and obviously cost an insane amount of money because I'd have to glue on every piece of macaroni individually by hand and I already wasn't too fond of doing that the first time around. It would so be worth the price though. Also, the inevitable occurrence of pieces of macaroni falling off would only make it even more unique. Plus, in a pinch, you could put it in the hot wash if you were very hungry, and then you could eat it.

Evil Trillie™ T-shirt!

These would be way cheaper but only come in bundle packages because, honestly, why wouldn't you want one of these for every day of the week? I'm actually thinking of going ahead and having a bunch of these printed for all of Boyfriend's mates anyway, because the idea of him never feeling safe again no matter where he goes is making me feel all warm and tingly inside the way girlfriends do.

Happiness fishbowl™ fishbowl!

I know right!
It's fishbowl-ception! Finally you could express your love for all things meta while also letting visitors know how happy you feel in relation to "having fingers" by slowly suffocating a real live animal. You could also use it to fool your roommates into thinking your drugs are anywhere outside this bowl, and then keep them in the bowl anyway, because that's just how whimsical you are, and fuck them, right?
(Fish not included.)2

Awesome exclusive self-help e-books!

The amazing I don't fucking know would, despite its slapdash cover design, totally fucking warp your mind, and be available exclusively through giving me your credit card information and a written statement allowing me to extract any funds that I would later decide would cover its total value (this is hard to calculate in advance, seeing as I don't yet know how many lives will be forever changed by it, and I can't predict the fucking future.) Qua content and structure, it would mostly follow the familiar model of me oversharing my own worries and woes in the signature self-indulgent manner you have all grown to know and love, leading to pleasant insights and revelations à la "maybe I ought to just lighten up" etc, through the careful application of such psychological tricks as admitting in advance that I, i.e. its author, don't fucking know either, thereby crafting a bond that encourages exactly the kind of atmosphere of trust and vulnerability that stimulates personal growth.

I don't fucking know's as yet unfinished successor would have me try to cast off all conscious knowledge of the past, thereby enabling me to write whatever the fuck I want without constant anxiety on whether or not it has been done before. As a result, it may end up including long verbatim reproductions of existing literature. Or, it may not. I can't predict the fucking, etc. (You can kind of get a feel of where most of the humor will come from in this one.) In it, I will encounter the reader in the tension-space between the kind of ruthless sincerity that could almost be a disguised cry for help,3 and the insidious irony that blankets every possible utterance of anybody in my generation. Its soon to be released trailer video would feature small groups of different ethnicities all around the world scanning the title in unison with an undertone of joyous relief at the recognition of their ability to just let go, and then sharing a hearty laugh like the quirky harmonious beings that they are.

Painful self-analysis™ camp™!

This would be where the real opportunity to give me money would be. I'm thinking about 300$ a head given all 8 of us could probably go there in one of those miniature buses disabled people use to go on field trips, and then when we're there live on macaroni T-shirts for the most part. Also, if any of you has a licence and is willing to drive us and pay for gas, you'd get a free Evil Trillie™ shirt out of it. Just the one though, but I would sign it.
Other than that it would mostly be like any other camp, except that every night we would sit by the fire trying to pinpoint the exact moment in our youth that set off the inescapable causal chain™ that is now steadily carrying us towards inevitable doom™.
When I say "we", I really mean "you", because aside from sharing a miniature bus ride with you, I would only be doing a quick Krusty the clown-like appearance near the end, where I would quiz you all on the various hidden messages in my e-books. There wouldn't be any hidden messages, but I would make you look for them anyway in a kind of bastardized Western interpretation of a Buddhist koan, trying to get you to the point where sudden self-insight would make you collapse into a weeping heap on the forest floor (I'd expect a lot of uncontrollable weeping).
Then we'd have a Joy Division singalong or something. ™.
(Norman Reedus not included.)

1 Actually, not even around this time anymore either. I have got to stop being so slow. For all I know, the begging-for-money sweet spot has already passed, and you are out there writhing in pain as we speak! See, this is why I'm not cut out to have any kind of responsibility ever. ↩2 If this means nothing to you, you should probably check out this post. ↩3 It wouldn't be, though. ↩